


Entropy

by abovetheserpentine



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:49:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2588990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovetheserpentine/pseuds/abovetheserpentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well - Stiles reflects wryly as one of them goes down with a perfectly aimed bullet; spasming, gasping for air out of its dark, gaping mouth - nothing like zombies to keep life in perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entropy

Memory is like nothing he’s ever experienced before. Like a spider’s web; intricate and sturdy but yet delicate when faced with something much bigger than itself. The days of wondering whether or not each neuron in his brain fire for a specific purpose to create or spur on one whole movement are over. Memory does that. Memory allows you to relive those moments of your life you found particularly horrible. Memory makes those moments easier on the psyche, repeating them over and over like a slowly crumbling sponge scrubbing at a particularly nasty spot of grease on a pan.

 _Memory,_ Stiles thinks, _is shit._

Sometimes the thought of life before the tangled mess that society has become springs to mind. It’s fleeting and never quite real enough for him to miss it. His dad will sometimes sit beside the flickering flames of that night’s warmth and Stiles knows he’s thinking about local police county barbecues and the smell of his wife’s hair in the morning. Stiles doesn’t like to think. Stiles doesn’t like to remember.

When the cold bite of winter arrives, the neurons in his brain fire a little differently than normal. His body is taut, wrung out, rearing to snap at any threat. His mind remembers things he thought he’d long forgotten, things like Heather’s mischievous smile and long hours bent over on a couch controlling the digital characters living in worlds he used to dream about.

Those worlds are now his and it’s a nightmare.

 _Well,_ Stiles reflects wryly as one of them goes down with a perfectly aimed bullet; spasming, gasping for air out of its dark, gaping mouth, _nothing like zombies to keep life in perspective._

It’s April 22nd and Stiles is now eighteen. It’s been eleven months.

 

~~

 

“Found a couple of rabbits near the river,” John states as he swings his prized game back and forth like a metronome, casual as you please. The smell of dead flesh, no matter how recent, turns Stiles’s stomach. When he was ten and learning to use his first pistol under diligent watch from his father, when he shot that first rabbit somewhere near the neck clean through and the blood gushed out of the wound, all Stiles felt was pride. Now, not so much. Blood glistens too much like the tears in his mother’s eyes as she’d cradled his head to her chest, bony fingers brushing against his newly shaven head. Blood congeals like ink on paper, like the tests Stiles flunked and the drawings he drew instead. Blood is like memory, wholly unwanted.

“They’ll be good enough for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow,” His father halts briefly in his efforts to skin his kills, “If you’re hungry.” He adds, eyes flitting over Stiles as he resumes his gruesome act. Stiles nods to appease him, grinding his teeth with the effort it takes to get the last person he killed out from under his fingernails. Knives aren’t his favourite, but they’re effective when in close combat with people. His aim with them is deadly accurate, unlike the variables you introduce with a long-range weapon like a pistol. Not to mention the maintenance work that goes into a firearm. It’s a Godsend that his father is still here with him in this, if only for his patience to put up with Stiles’s aversion to gun cleaning.

His dad gets breaks sometimes, though, when they team up with other gun-wielding survivors out for some blood. Most people have found a base by now, a safe haven to recuperate when the darkness hits. Stiles has never felt comfortable enough to join any of them. Nothing is safe enough for him. And if it’s not safe enough for him it’s definitely not safe enough for his own father. Family comes first. Stiles knows that.

“You’re quiet tonight.” His dad says after the rabbits have been consumed and none left for the morning. The feel of food in his mouth in the quiet of dawn, hot and welcome, is foreign enough to him that he can hardly recall it, let alone yearn for it.

“Just thinking.” Stiles murmurs. His fingers graze the next page of his novel like the faded words aren’t already familiar to him, like they aren’t already forming on his tongue before his tired eyes even touch them.

“You’re never _just thinking_ , Stiles.” John intones with exasperated fondness, eyes crinkling with the old smile that graces his face. Stiles’s stomach warms.

A page is turned, the sound of it echoing across the clearing. The fire crackles somewhere in front of him, its heat warming the hiking boots Stiles was gifted for his fifteenth birthday, never used until he turned seventeen and then christened with the blood of his next door neighbour.

“You know things are different right now,” Stiles begins. He doesn’t need to finish, the uneasiness in his face and most particularly the jittering of his legs betraying him.

John sighs heavily, a sound as familiar to Stiles as breathing. Or, he supposes, the groaning of the undead.

“We’ll hit a pharmacy tomorrow, kid. I promise.” The Sheriff rises easily, tucking his gun into the back of his combat pants, which used to be something of a souvenir from his training days. Now they’re just pants he hasn’t changed out of in days. No one’s surprised he can fit into them.

 

~~

 

It started how all things end. These days, it comes to Stiles in the dead of the night when he’s at his loneliest, lungs searching for air they’re denied when he buries his face into the sleeping bag beneath him. Not his. Nothing is ever his. 

His bed was his. When he was laying in it, anyway. Too many nights spent staring at a computer screen, cursing under his breath. Afternoons slaved over a desk, researching the next big procrastination technique.

He comes home from school the day before, bursting through his bedroom door to the sound of his father leaving for the night shift. The usual Monday. Homework remaining in his backpack, Stiles logs on to the online world of his newest video game and prepares for hours of uninterrupted binge eating and unhealthy amounts of soda. Scott joins him later over microphone and headset, talking about the English metaphors Stiles has not yet bothered to grasp; something about innocence and mockingbirds? Stiles wasn’t really paying attention.

Around midnight he calls it quits, the acidity of the soda hitting him full force and he belches – the sound of a satisfied teenager. He showers, dresses in sweatpants and a tee because it’s only early spring, still a little cold, and hops into bed. He feebly tries to jack off but his heart’s just not in it. Instead, Stiles turns over, back to his door, and buries his face into his Spiderman pillow, waiting to do it all again tomorrow. No one could ever accuse Stiles of growing up too fast.

A firm grip wakes him. He’s jostled until he’s almost falling out of bed.

“-iles, Stiles, get up, get up now-“

His groggy mind struggles and stutters, like the old engine of a used car, unused to unscheduled use.

A sheriff’s badge comes into view, a little blurry through sleepy eyes. Stiles suddenly realises that’s his dad in front of him, virtually hauling him out of the comforting cocoon of warmth that is his bed.

“Pack the essentials, only what you desperately need. Grab your boots, the good ones. Go.”

When Stiles fails to do anything – only his amber eyes frowning in his dad’s direction – does John raise his voice above an urgent whisper. 

“ _Now,_ Stiles. We don’t have much time.” John is in full uniform, and he stalks quietly from Stiles’s room, the glint of his handgun visible in its holster. 

The tone of voice – cold and calculating with a hint of worry – isn’t one Stiles has heard for a long time. It echoes in his brain, rattles, annoying like the beep of a hospital’s heart monitor when one is trying to sleep. He scrambles out of bed, shoving his socked feet into his good boots, grabbing his phone, wallet, and a few changes of clothes. He doesn’t know how long they’ll be gone. He doesn’t know anything.

His feet are pounding down the stairs, duffel bag bouncing lightly on his shoulders. His black hoodie provides just enough warmth to keep him going until they get where they need to be. They don’t have much family up north, so Stiles isn’t that worried. In fact, the idea of travelling south for a few days calms him, even if its most likely because some great aunt of his he’s never met has passed away. What’s one funeral when he’s been to thousands in just his head alone?

He’s turning the corner into the living room, the glow of the moon illuminating its shadows, and he’s at the doorway when he goes to speak.

“Da-“

The sliding door to the backyard smashes, glass flying everywhere. Stiles covers his head with his arms instinctively, only feeling the prick of glass through his hoodie, not the pain. Looking up quickly, he sees Mrs Stanley, the sweet if slightly clingy old lady from next door who used to babysit him when his dad worked nights when Stiles was in middle school. She’s covered in blood, and Stiles hears some sort of retching coming from her direction.

She charges Stiles, and Stiles can only think of her eager face when met with the news it was a Mrs S and Little S Thursday night.

The sound of a gunshot reverberates around the room. Mrs Stanley is on the floor, twitching, as more blood spews from her.

Stiles drops his head to look at his good boots. They’re red now.

“Like I said, Stiles,”

Stiles looks up, face frozen in shock.

“We gotta move.” John tucks the handgun back into its holster and it’s only then that Stiles realises the array of other weapons his dad is possessing. Knives, handguns, rifles, more pistols, and an aluminium baseball bat.

He hands Stiles the bat, which is cool to touch. 

Ten minutes later they’re in the sheriff’s police cruiser on their way out of Beacon Hills. Only ten minutes after that does Stiles feel guilty for not calling Scott, or Heather. Turns out the cell towers are down, anyway. Figures.

 

~~

 

These walks through town always feel like a scene out of a movie for Stiles. They’re not in Beacon Hills – they left California months ago, the south too populated and anywhere north too cold to last any longer than that. To be honest with himself, Stiles isn’t sure where they are. He thinks maybe Texas. It’s anyone’s guess, at this rate. He can’t remember the last time they saw a road sign. As the disease spread nationwide within the first month, counting the miles used to bring him comfort. Now, it only reminds him of the sad reality he faces every day.

This town – small, deserted, silent – burns unusually hot for such a spring day. Stiles and his dad often frequent places like this, with populations small enough to outrun if it comes to it. If John had the choice, Stiles knows, they wouldn’t go near towns at all. Stiles imagines his father might live out in the country somewhere, find a few farm animals, grow a few crops. He hates relying on other people, other places. It’s why he became the Sheriff, after all; so he could be the pillar that held Beacon Hills together.

His rifle hangs loosely in his grip; the sun overheard makes the likelihood of an attack minimal. Zombies don’t like heat – it decays the flesh quicker, making them slower and more stupid. Stiles likes the sun exactly for that reason. He’s heard the undead problem has been all but solved in Australia, something about herding them all into deserts and hoping for the best. At least, that’s what the last broadcast had told him about ten months ago. He’s not hopeful, though. Zombies find a way, that’s his motto.

John gives a dry cough, and the birds ripping off rotting flesh from bodies strewn across car windscreens and dilapidated porches fly off in surprise.

“We’ll get your Adderall, and then leech some gas for the cruiser from a couple of cars. Looks like these ones have been largely untouched.”

Stiles looks around him at the cars only slightly skewed, like they’ve been parked badly and not had bodies thrown against them. The zombies were particularly violent in the first week. His dad always said it was something in the blood that made them rabid and undead, and that the amount of blood in a freshly turned body somehow made them stronger. Stiles doesn’t like to think of them as strong or weak depending. People were around, and so the zombies went psycho with bloodlust. Turn or eat, that’s the way they roll. Nowadays, uninfected humans are in shortage and so the zombies are starving. _That’s_ what makes them violent. 

“Whatever you do, st-“

“-ay with you.” Stiles finishes, rolling his eyes. “Dad, I don’t know how many times I’ve told you, but I’ve seen enough zombie films and played enough video games to know that splitting up is the worst strategy _ever_ and you literally have to be an uncultured swine to not have learnt that through the gore genre of entertainment media.”

John snorts in amusement, adjusting his sweaty grip on his firearm, the muscles of his tanned forearms shifting just under the skin. Stiles forgets, sometimes, that he used to have to pester his dad to eat a salad, stay away from the curly fries. It’s when he sees his father like this, fit and muscular, that he yearns for the days when heart disease was the most of his worries. He also yearns for curly fries, because _damn_.

“ _28 Days Later_ is just about the only film that got it in that regard.” Stiles continues, waving away a couple of flies as cool sweat slowly rolls down his neck. He makes a face at the laundromat they pass, considering, “Although, I guess you can’t count out _Shaun Of The Dead_ so soon. It may have been a comedy, but they got their shit _right_ -“

“One day, son,” John interrupts with a fond smile as they continue walking, searching for a pharmaceutical sign or logo, “we’re going to sit down and watch those travesties, pointing out the many inaccuracies along the way.”

“Yeah,” Stiles laughs, tightening his palm around his rifle, “one day.”

They walk for another ten minutes, ripped jeans taken from a farm two weeks ago clinging to Stiles’s calves with sweat. His hair, longer than it ever was in high school, is long enough at the front to plaster itself to his forehead, wet and disgusting. Working shavers are hard to come by when there’s limited electricity access. Stiles mourns.

“Up ahead, twenty feet.” John says, jerking his head toward the abandoned pharmacy on Stiles’s left. The pharmacy is dark, afternoon sun unable to reach past the awning covering the sidewalk. There are no lights on, of course.

They look at each other, almost sigh in unison, put their rifles on safety and extract the semi-automatic weapons they rarely use. When you’re in close range, you’re going to want a semi-automatic, or a blade. Some of their allies in the past learnt that the hard way.

“Usual formation?” Stiles asks as they stand outside the store, eyes squinting to see into the shadows of the medicine aisles.

His father nods, expression demanding quiet. It’s not in the throes of combat that Stiles thought he’d find an aptitude for silence, but it turns out he was wrong. The sweaty grip on his Glock and the steady focus maintained at his target are like his own twisted version of Nirvana. There’s something pure about the intent to protect yourself that Stiles revels in.

John enters first, holding the door open for his son to follow. They sweep the front room first, silent on bent knees and dextrous feet. Discarded pills lay on the ground, their bottles opened and unused. The usual supplies have already been taken – antiseptic, paracetamol, and _condoms_ of all things (because having a baby has gone from something magical to something utterly unwanted) just to name a few – but no one ever thinks to take the measly medication required for Stiles’s attention issues. Adderall has always been available, in every pharmacy. Given the variety of other disorders or diseases Stiles could’ve had, it was only when the apocalypse hit that he was actually thankful for his ADHD.

The lights hang lopsided and ominous from the ceiling and Stiles notes his father avoids any paths that take them directly under them. After clearing the main product area, the Sheriff leads them to the back, behind the counter, where Stiles’s famed Adderall lies.

It’s here where the fun begins. Or hell. Either one.

They peruse the shelves separately, eager to get the job done. The quicker they get outside into the burning sun and away from potential traps, the better.

Stiles glances at the bottles on the shelves before him, not seeing the familiar packaging of his favourite drug. His fingers dance over the medication and he stashes a few into his jacket pockets if he thinks they might be useful. He glimpses an ‘Adde-’ and turns to get a better look when hands grip the base of his neck.

He lets out a panicked yell, hoping his dad will hear him across the stacks.

The weight of the zombie makes him stumble, and he falls onto his back painfully, pushing at the decaying face of the creature in front of him with both of his hands. He carefully avoids its teeth, and makes sure his face stays well away from any dripping saliva or blood. It’s in the blood, there’s something in the blood.

Its ravenous mouth gets dangerously close to Stiles’s jaw before the rotting flesh is pulled off him. Stiles sees a knife plunge sickeningly into the side of the zombie’s head. It squelches as it’s taken out, and Stiles can’t help but wince in sympathy.

The knife is held by someone he doesn’t know, which surprises him at first, then hardens him. He reaches into his pocket and grips his own knife with white knuckles. Stranger equals danger, as funny as it might’ve seemed to Stiles when he was fourteen. 

“Who are you?” he demands, staring down the new acquaintance with disdain. The guy’s attractive, Stiles will give him that. But attractiveness gets you nowhere in these times, when you’re looking more closely at someone’s hands and their proximity to weaponry than you are at their face.

“No ‘thank you’?” Tall, dark and handsome quips. His forearms glisten with sweat, the sleeves on his grey henley rolled up to his elbows, and his large hands look relaxed. His knife, serrated, hangs limply in his right palm.

John’s handgun clicks definitively behind the intruder, and Stiles raises his eyebrows smugly. Hot Bearded Guy might’ve saved Stiles’s life, but that doesn’t mean his dad’s going to welcome him into their lives with open arms. You can’t trust anybody these days. Family comes first. 

“Mind telling me what you’re doing standing over my son with a knife in your hand?”

Stiles, no matter how old he gets, will always feel smugly cool when his dad goes all bad cop on other people. He loved it as a kid and, despite the circumstances, loves it now. His dad is a badass, simply put. 

“Saving his life.” Hot Bearded Guy rolls his eyes, like their paranoia is totally unfounded. Stiles glares at him.

There’s a tense few seconds before their guest tucks away his knife into his belt, and holds out a hand to Stiles, as if to help him up.

“Derek,” He introduces, and his thick eyebrows rise as if daring Stiles to make a joke about his name. Stiles resolutely keeps his mouth shut. His father’s gun is still held on Derek, and yet the man seems unfazed.

Stiles chances a look at his dad, who seems less angry and more tired now that Derek seems amicable. The younger Stilinski knows, though, that neither of their guards are down. They haven’t _been_ down since his dad shot their neighbour however many months ago. But, to put it this way, their hackles aren’t as risen as before.

So Stiles takes a chance and lets Derek pull him up off of the ground.

“You alone?” Stiles questions, eyeing Derek’s sparse clothing and lack of weaponry. Seems kind of amateurish to be looking like that if you’re going solo.

There’s a slight hesitation before Derek replies.

“Yes.”

With a glance at his dad, Stiles knows that neither of them believes it. He gives Derek a look, one he perfected back in Beacon Hills when his father tried to tell him he hadn’t had anything but his salad for lunch despite barbecue sauce staining the front of his uniform.

“I was with a group,” Derek divulges, clenching his jaw. His alien-like high cheekbones and hard frown turn his face into one that is entirely frightening. “But we got separated. I was-” His lips curl into a snarl, and Stiles suddenly wants to take a large step back, “-incapacitated upon departure.” He gestures sharply to his thigh, which Stiles only now notices has a dark patch that can only be blood on Derek’s faded black jeans.

He’s not sure why he thinks it, but Stiles is almost positive that Derek is lying. Something about his eyebrows, and the cold glint in his eyes. The man before him has seen a lot of death; it doesn’t seem plausible that he’d be separated from his cohort so easily when it was obviously his main method of survival.

His father looks temporarily swayed, though, and stops aiming his gun at Derek’s head.

“I suppose we’ve got room for one more,” the Sheriff starts hesitantly. Derek gives what is obviously meant to be a smile, but turns out to be more of a grimace. 

The leaden feeling in Stiles’s stomach throbs with a newfound sense of urgency. Despite the voice in his head screaming at him to _properly_ incapacitate Derek, Stiles follows his dad’s lead and sheathes his weapon.

 

~~

 

_“Complacency,” Lincoln begins around a mouthful of pork, the first Stiles has had in the three months since this whole shit-fest began, “that’s what’ll get ya.”_

_Stiles keeps his eyes down, chewing mindlessly on the flesh of Betty the pig, whom he’d met only this afternoon. Lincoln’s set-up is ambitious, Stiles will give him that; but he’s never been one for much management of livestock. If they ever settle somewhere, Stiles predicts he’s most likely going to be on the plant side of things. After all, he and his mother used to garden all the time._

_Stiles tries not to think about before._

_“The minute you think you’re better than ‘em, that’s the day you die. I guarantee it.” Lincoln’s daughter, Vanessa, nods in agreement. The rest of the group eat in peace, probably accustomed to their leader’s daily tips for zombie survival._

_His dad catches Stiles’s eye, and they both know they’ll be out of the camp by lunch the next day._

_“After all,” Lincoln continues after gulping down his water for the night, eyes landing unnervingly on Stiles, “they were all human once.”_

_The blood of a twelve year old boy still glistening on the machete by his feet, Stiles tries not to think about it._

 

~~

 

Derek is quiet.

Well, he’s quiet in the way Stiles _isn’t_. But he says a lot more than he seems to like with his body language alone. Stiles is an expert on body language, having decided he wanted to be an FBI agent at age fifteen and Googling all the interrogation tactics he’d have to employ on his targets, interpretation of body language being one of them.

For one, Derek is physically stronger than he makes himself out to be. He’s a muscular guy, sure, but the strain he fakes in front of them is pathetic, at best. Maybe if his face actually looked tired as he hauled dead bodies into the pits they dug out Stiles might believe him. Derek just looks bored.

Then again, that might just be Stiles’s constant diatribes. His material has only had a one-member audience for so long, he’s using this temporarily long-term opportunity to hone in on his social skills.

Derek’s with them a week before he says anything remotely personal, and even then it only seems like it’s an olive branch so as to hopefully dissipate the tension between them all.

“My – my family, we have a place,” he starts on the ninth night with them, staring into the dwindling embers of their campfire. It’s late. Derek had had to beat a teenage girl with a bat that day. None of them can sleep just yet.

“It’s a compound,” he expands, realising neither of the Stilinskis are going to prompt him.

Stiles and his father share a look.

“Compound?” John echoes, leaning forward in interest.

Derek is… Derek doesn’t seem to be entirely forthcoming. But John had been adamant days ago.

“Derek’s good people.” He’d said out of the corner of his mouth as Derek had been skinning their dinner.

So they’re trusting him, for now.

“I’m still injured,” Derek reminds them, and Stiles rolls his eyes discreetly. Derek’s mystery wound, which seemed to completely heal in a matter of days instead of needing stitches and healing gradually over a few weeks, was exactly that – mysterious. “But we should be able to make our way there soon. Maybe in a week. It’s…”

Stiles is staring Derek down, and their eyes catch. Hazel bores into amber and Stiles fights the burn of his red cheeks.

“It’s safe.”

“Yeah, well,” John starts, wrapping his jacket more tightly around him; the nights are still cool, “Safe is relative.”

“There’s many of us, more than just my family,” says Derek with a mumble. He’s staring down at his feet, dirty boots caked with blood. They don’t bother cleaning them anymore. “It’s enclosed, there’s an alarm system.”

“An alarm system?” Stiles asks in disbelief, a derisive scoff escaping him. Derek shoots him a dark glare. “How does that work with no electricity?”

“Back-up generator. Solar power. It’s a… it’s a complex. A community.”

None of them say anything for a little while. Stiles ponders about what it would be like to feel safe again, to not have to kill kids and grandmas and eat game every second night and go hungry in between. The idea that Stiles could live instead of survive is so foreign that he feels out of place and itchy under his skin.

He tries not to think about it.

 

~~

 

“I just need a little help carrying these supplies to my car.” She says.

Stiles is wary. This is the first time he’s encountered an outsider without his dad present; namely, because they never split up. But Stiles, for once, was desperate to take a look at the rare comic book store he’d glimpsed driving into the small town. There are only so many hours you can play I-Spy when driving on deserted highways. They didn’t have enough time nor his dad, the patience, to peruse the store together. So John was off grabbing some canned food in the minimart a block away, and Stiles was snatching up his favourite visual Spiderman tales from _SANS COMIC_. The sun gleams high above. By all accounts it should be safe. 

As he’s exiting the store he sees her, piling a few boxes on top of one another and attempting to lift. It’s not really working, and he’s so shocked at the sight of another conscious human, let alone a girl, that he doesn’t say anything until she speaks up.

“It’s up the road a bit.”

In hindsight, Stiles isn’t sure why he doesn’t question her choice of park. This is not 2011. You can park wherever you want.

In hindsight, Stiles blames the cold and the straying from routine.

In hindsight, Stiles is still an idiot.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, pocketing the comics he’s holding in his jacket, pistol held loose in his hand. He shoves it down the back of his jeans, safety firmly in place.

She grabs the box on top, and he grabs the second, and they walk.

“Gemma,” she states, matter of fact, smile as blinding and biting as the winter winds.

“Stiles.” He grins, easy, because it is. She looks like Heather. Blonde, light eyes, fair skin. Short as anything. Stiles grins because it’s all he has left.

“You alone?” she asks into the wind.

That should’ve been his first clue.

“Nah,” They turn off the footpath, into the sparse woods on the outskirts of town, “Me and my dad.”

“Oh, cool.” She states, continuing forward as if nothing is wrong.

“Wait, wait, wait,” He stops, the box clinking sharply with the sudden halt. He wonders what’s in there that makes it so heavy.

“It’s easier to cut through here to get to the road,” Gemma rolls her eyes, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking. “If I wanted to kill you, don’t you think I would’ve done it by now?”

“I guess…” Stiles trails off, frowning.

“Come on, you’re not going to let a young girl like me carry this all by myself, are you?”

“With the ease you’re carrying that one, I’d say it’d be no trouble,” Stiles snorts, and she smirks back at him.

They continue on, making idle chatter until they reach a strange rest stop on the side of a highway. Forest surrounds them, and Stiles doesn’t remember ever driving through here to get to town. An old Toyota sits in the rest stop, and Gemma unlocks from a distance. He forgets, sometimes, that not all cars are police cruisers.

She places her box in the backseat, and he goes to follow, wondering out loud.

“What do you have in these boxes, anyway?” He places the box down, shutting the car door and turning back toward her, “Feels freakin-“

She pushes him up against the car, moving to stand between his legs. Stiles can’t wipe the shocked look off his face in time to meet her gaze. She smirks, and he notices the hard lines around her eyes and tight, white-handed grip on his jacket.

“What are you doing?” he questions flatly, unimpressed.

“What, a girl can’t say thank you?” Her hands slide up his chest to wrap around his neck, scratching at its base. Stiles withholds a shudder.

“That’s the second time you’ve used that line on me, you know.” Stiles comments blandly as Gemma’s face gets closer and closer to his, “One might begin to think you’re playing on the idea of male chivalry.”

She kisses him, and as far as kisses go it’s rough and bruising and Stiles doesn’t like it. Gemma is nothing like Heather in this moment.

Her lips leave his and make a path to his ear, and he hears - 

“Haven’t you heard?” Her breath is hot in the cold of the January day, lips brushing his neck, “ _Chivalry is dead._ ”

And she bites.

“What the fuck?!” Stiles exclaims, violently shoving her away, but the damage is done. Gemma wipes something from her lips and gives a mean laugh. He touches the throbbing point on his neck, coming away with blood. The wound isn’t deep enough for him to bleed out, but it’s enough.

“It’s the end of the world, Stiles.” She purrs from her place five feet away, and Stiles glimpses the wound on her neck – a bite mark. He wonders, horrified, why he didn’t see it before.

“You know what they say about your last night on earth.”

She tilts her head, like his disgust is unjustified.

“Yeah, but when you know you’re going to die you don’t tend to bring down other people with you.” Stiles snarks. He goes for his gun, pulling it out of his jeans and aiming it right at her chest. She grins, and his blood is on her teeth.

“I’m dead, anyway.” Gemma reminds him, dirty blonde hair flying in the wind. He pauses, hand steady and stare unblinking.

“And now you’ll stay dead.”

He shoots, and her grin is still red.

Stiles looks down at her cooling body. He aims for the head. He doesn’t miss. 

He turns to walk away, but thinks to check.

Walking back to the car and opening the door, he looks inside the box. Bottles and bottles of alcohol.

“Should’ve known.”

He laughs without humour and walks back to his father. If his eyes are a little red by the time he reunites with him, the Sheriff doesn’t say anything.

 

~~

 

“Don’t worry,” Stiles mutters against Derek’s lips, “I got my first kiss from a zombie. Not that hard to beat.”

Derek chuckles lowly, and Stiles feels Derek’s huffs of breath on his own lips. He licks them in anticipation, and his tongue catches.

Well, he might as well.

He surges forward, probably a tad too enthusiastic given the situation, but Derek’s hands come up to his jaw and gently guide him into a softer, slower rhythm.

 

~~

 

“Who dictates this little shit gets to live?” he spits, furious, and in that moment Stiles knows there’s no way out of this. At least, not for him. “Who decides he’s better than all of us scrimmaging for survival?”

The Sheriff’s hands are still raised, as the shotgun barrel remains steadily cocked in his direction. His eyes are locked onto Arnold in case of any sudden movement from the man. But Stiles knows him, knows his father and has known him for nearing twenty years. Stiles knows John is struggling for composure, and having extreme difficulty maintaining his gaze and not turning toward Stiles.

 

~~

 

“You knew?” he asks quietly. The ropes around his hands sting with familiarity, wrists ringed with red.

“Kid,” John smiles like Stiles is five again and bringing home his first finger-painting, “I’m your dad. There isn’t anything you can hide from me.” He huffs something not quite a laugh, “No matter how hard you try.”

“So you saw,” Stiles states, staring guiltily at the ground. "The bite."

“I was suspicious at first. You began to worry at your neck an awful lot, and when I took the time to look and noticed... well, by that point the incubation period was long gone and you should've been showing symptoms," the Sheriff sighs, like this is all too much. "But you didn't. And now here we are."

 

~~

 

“FAMILY COMES FIRST!” Stiles roars, temples pulsing with the blood he knows no longer has a place in this world. The civilised world, at least. Derek’s face goes slack with shock, sweaty palms sliding off of Stiles’s shoulders slowly with surprise. “Just go.” Stiles urges, already turning back around to face what he always knew, deep in his desperate, lonely little heart would always happen. 

Derek makes a grab for Stiles’s jacket, fingers almost catching before Stiles shoves him toward the open window, “Stiles, I-“

“GO!”

There's a moment of stillness, broken only by the crackling of the flames.

"No." Derek says calmly.

"What?" Stiles spins around. It feels like the fire has spread to his veins now.

“You thought this was going to _end?!_ ” Derek exclaims, fingers again digging into Stiles’s forearm painfully, “This is never going to end, Stiles! The pain, the destruction, the _blood_ – it’s a never-ending cycle and we’re along for the ride. This _is_ the end.”

Stiles feels the wetness of tears rolling down his face. He holds back the sob stuck in his throat, jaw clenched painfully. He can’t look at Derek, not when he’s punching Stiles in the face with the truth so blatantly laid out in his words.

“ _You’re_ the salvation, here. Life doesn’t get easier than this, not out here and not right now.” The fire burning behind them rages on, crackling and spitting like it’s offended at the very prospect Derek is presenting.

“But it can,” Derek begs, and Stiles looks up, eyes shining, to see the most pathetic smile he’s ever witnessed. Derek’s face is covered in dirt and sweat and ash, and the cut on his temple, already healed, has bled into his right eye. He doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe he doesn’t care. “It can. With us. It starts with us and it ends with my pack. Let me help you, let me take you there.”

The thin t-shirt does nothing to shield his back from the heat emanating from behind him. He turns, face burning, the tear tracks shining in the light of the flames licking up onto the second floor now, and that’s it. His dad is gone. 

“HEY!” He’s shaken, body jostling like a ragdoll, or a puppet cut loose. “HEY! LOOK AT ME!” 

Stiles turns, sob escaping from its cage and hands grasping desperately at Derek’s shoulders, his collar, his neck. Anything to hold on to, to keep him in this world and alive and breathing.

“It’s okay,” Derek says, voice cracking, their foreheads resting against each other’s as Derek clutches the sides of Stiles’s face desperately, his hands trembling. “We can do this. You’re not alone.”

Alone. His dad is gone and he’s the last one left. Of course he’s alone, how can he not be- 

“Oh God,” Stiles cries, voice cracking. “No, no, no, no, I-“ 

“Stiles!” 

“No, please, oh Jesus-“

He pushes away from Derek, nails scratching harshly into the skin over Derek’s pulse, fast and steady, a beat that makes his heart clench, and he runs.

“Stiles! Stiles, wait!”

He keeps running.

 

~~

 

“DEREK!”

The female screech startles Stiles, but Derek seems unaffected. In fact, it looks like he was expecting it, if his blinding grin is anything to go by.

The towers at the entrance to the compound hold guards, impassive. The blood-spattered gates, though. Those are moving.

“Stand aside!” A more composed voice orders, “I said, _stand aside!_ ”

Stiles’s hand remains firm in Derek’s, almost in pain with the pressure he’s enforcing. Derek’s shoulders are bunched around his ears like he’s waiting for reprimand, or punishment. 

As the gate opens fully, groaning, a group of people are slowly revealed; a tall, imposing woman at the forefront.

It seems a visual cue was all they were waiting for because as soon as she is able, the woman strides forward, embracing Derek in what has to be the most bone-crushing, guilt-inducing hug Stiles has ever seen. 

The rest of the group follow in a similar vein, crowding around Derek like he’s the second coming of Christ, smiling and laughing and hugging and crying. Stiles chuckles lightly to himself at the irony, but it seems he's heard.

“And who is this?” A girl a little older than Derek asks with an almost identical eyebrow raise, eyes red but happy. Stiles guesses this is Laura. She’s got one hand on her brother’s arm, like he might disappear at any moment. Stiles knows the feeling. Derek turns his head to look at him.

“Stiles,” he breathes, eyes warm. Their hands are still linked together, and Stiles isn’t sure he’s going to be able to let go any time soon. He tugs him forward. “This is Stiles.”

Stiles smiles, eyes crinkling just like his dad.

 

~~

 

_“So what are we gonna name him?”_

_Claudia Stilinski smiles, tired and worn, as she gazes down at her first and only child. His flushed face scrunches up, nuzzling further into her arms._

_“Walenty,” She pauses to look up at her husband, who raises an eyebrow, “it’s a family name. I feel obligated.” Claudia explains, rolling her eyes good-naturedly._

_“Alright then,” John agrees, kissing his wife’s temple, “as long as you let the little man give himself a nickname. I’m gonna feel like I’m back in the motherland when I’m yelling Walenty about the place.”_

_“Oh?” Claudia enquires with an amused smile, “A troublemaker, you think?”_

_“Any kid with the name Walenty is gonna be using it to his advantage ‘til the day he dies, Claudia, I’ll tell you that now.” John says, his palm resting softly on his son’s head. “Commands glory? I mean, sheesh.” Walenty huffs lightly in his sleep, wriggling in his mother’s arms._

_“I don’t know,” she begins, brushing her baby’s tiny face with her thumb, “I kind of like it.”_

_She smiles, amber eyes soft._

_“My little hero.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Walenty - healthy, strong
> 
> I've had this story on my computer for over a year. Originally I planned to make it into a 20k sterek but I lost steam on it after 7k words and I felt it was a mostly complete tale like this. So instead of fooling myself, I've accepted I'll never finish this. I hope you enjoy this mess, haha.


End file.
